Trust Yourself: You Know What You Know – A Guest Post from Julie Daley

I was not surprised when Julie told me she wanted to write on trusting yourself – that those words resonated with her from my manifesto. The first time I met her and looked into her eyes, I thought, “this is is a woman who sees and trusts.” For those of you in a state of transition, take heart from Julie’s beautiful words … and trust.

Women’s wisdom: we carry it in our bodies, our hearts, and in our souls. Somewhere we learned to discount this gift of wisdom. Somehow our trust in ourselves was eroded as we began to trust ‘those who are supposed to know’ instead. But deep in our bodies, we know.

I’ve been in an in-between space for months, now.

My work in the world is changing. I knew my direction was changing somewhere inside before I consciously began to align with this internal knowing. This seems to be how I am with change. I don’t embrace it easily, yet I do embrace it eventually.

In this in-between place, the knowing can be fuzzy. There can be confusion. We lack clarity. And as Thoreau wrote, “Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.”

I’ve been in this lost place…and I haven’t wanted to feel the lostness. I’ve tried to scale the walls to get back onto sure ground, but there’s no going back. That sure ground was never sure…I just thought it was. It was a plateau for a period of time made out of my mind wanting the status quo to be solid.

But now, I am in this lost place. I see some things, and there is much that has not yet been revealed.

The funny thing is, it won’t be revealed until I receive the confusion that is here. That is what is true.

People write of surrender, or letting go, and perhaps many other phrases. Adyashanti, someone whose wisdom I respect, speaks instead of receiving what is here. Receiving is a very feminine aspect. Women know how to take things in.We receive all the time, yet are we being discrete in what we take in? Can we take in the knowing we have within our own beings? Can we receive the road the soul is longing to travel?

Rumi wrote, “There is a candle in your heart, ready to be kindled. There is a void in your soul, ready to be filled. You feel it, don’t you?”

Do you feel this void in your soul? Do you hear a voice calling you to turn within?

This candle in your heart is your knowing, your light.

Spirituality is really about unlearning, unveiling, and seeing through the conditioning that veils our own knowing. There comes a point where the soul calls and we must make that choice whether or not to trust it, to face it.

There is no coming to consciousness without pain… People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.~ Carl Jung

When we take time to be still, to consciously ask to be filled with that which the soul longs to know, something happens…we receive exactly what is ripe and here for our own soul’s unfolding.

So take some time to be still and ask to receive.

Sit with your awareness in the heart. See it as a vast window into consciousness. When the heart is ready, the door will open. Receive yourself into your Self. Ask for the capacity to trust in that which you know to be true, and that which you don’t yet know. This isn’t about getting anything. Getting something is very different than receiving. Receiving is opening to the grace that is present, that is longing to feed your soul.

Grace is the sustenance you crave.

We make the darkness conscious when we kindle the candle of the heart, when we open to receive that which longs to fill the void in the soul.

I have a glimpse of this light and the power of it can cause me to shrink away from what I know to be true. And, this shrinking is painful to my own soul. This is the doorway for me to walk through, the same doorway we all must walk through if we are to face the beauty of our own souls, and live from the only place of integrity a human can know – the integrity of the soul.

Learning to feel and trust what is real and alive within is both a difficult and joyous journey. It’s a spiral journey that unwinds all that is not true to reveal the essence of the truth of you.

A dancer at heart, Julie would love nothing more than to live her life and do her work from the dance floor. Ten years in the practice of 5Rhythms has opened her to the joy and wildness that is at the heart of women’s creativity. A writer, teacher, coach, and yes, dancer, Julie savors life playing with her wee grandchildren & serving the women and men who are called to work with her. Julie is happiest when she is breathing through her feet.

So much to love about this, thank you! This speaks strongly to me: “That sure ground was never sure…I just thought it was. It was a plateau for a period of time made out of my mind wanting the status quo to be solid.”

As I read, I realize that I am “in the space between”; although sometimes in my life it feels as if I sometimes allow myself to consider this space as permanent. This time I am creating and opening to receive…my affirmation is allow World to love you and it will I wasn’t raised with resources to learn to receive, so to explore and experiment with it now is a wonderful gift!

Joy, Thanks for sharing this. I, too, wasn’t raised knowing how to receive. It’s been a hard thing to learn, yet when I relax into my feminine nature, it is there. Glad to be in this place with you.
Love, JulieJulie Daley recently posted..I Write and the Words Weave Beauty

I feel something shifting, wanting to change within me but I don’t know what. I have no words yet and it’s uncomfortable. I don’t know what to write, I don’t know what to say. I just know I need to let it be ok and it will work its way through me.

Rushing it, pushing through it, making the change happen sooner – none of these will work. I don’t know how I know, but I know this to be true this time.Sandi Amorim recently posted..Authentic Creativity is Self-Love

Sandi, How beautifully you are trusting what you know…that you ‘don’t know how you know, but you know this to be true this time.’ love, JulieJulie Daley recently posted..I Write and the Words Weave Beauty

OK. A perfect union for me. My dear, dear friend Andrea AND my dear, dear friend Julie – together? Pure bliss. Even more, the two of you – in who you are and how you live remind me over and over again that I can trust myself…because you do. Thank you.

Julie, you write of the discomfort of the in-between so poetically, it invites me to enjoy – even luxuriate in – the process of being here. Many times a day, I have to remind myself that the answer lies within. I am deeply (even feels cellular) programmed to look outward. Deep change is afoot, the kind that only comes from the opening and receiving that is not rushed. I’m grateful for your words and understanding of this experience.

Mary, I understand about the cellular…turning within to listen deeply is totally not what we are taught, yet what is required to come to know the truth. I love that deep change is afoot (love that word, too)! We are walking together… Love, JulieJulie Daley recently posted..The Whole World is Alive in Play